Choosing your subjects!

Studying in a country where the Universities provide advantages of flexibility and encouragement to study across wide stream of possibilities, often demands higher personal initiative, attention and planning. In German Universities, students leverage both, selecting the area of interest and choosing the time to study them. This is a great benefit, allowing students to plan their own schedules for the semester, explore their areas of interest to even the widest possible choices. The general University course curriculum is divided into modules where each module consists of several subjects. Some of these modules are mandatory for a student towards degree accomplishment, thus are the subjects in these modules. Rest of the modules provide students with various options to choose their subjects. Also, the subject exams can be registered as per student’s convenience. All this definitely seems to be positive, but has its call for duty! 
Choosing wisely the options and planning the semesters in advance can be very fruitful in accomplishing the degree in appropriate time. In order to plan out the study courses and semesters there are various services available at the university itself. There are University advisory services for students, introductory events and international students’ guide events where a student can talk and consult to their seniors and the course coordinators. There are various country specific organisations too helping the international students to plan out their course of study. It is highly recommended to take advantage of these events and services at the University while planning the study courses. Apart from selecting the study courses, there are several other factors to keep a note of. Such as the lectures, exams, tutorials, etc. Each course usually, has number of pre-planned lectures, each followed by a tutorial, then eventually a written or an oral exam at the end of the semester. The students are required to register for each of these events for a subject. The lectures and tutorials and usually not mandatory however are of great assistance and advantage towards learning the subject. Course, tutorial or examination changes are often announced through emails or online notice boards. Apart from these, there are several seminars, projects and lab assignments that help to achieve that extra edge in learning the subject. 
All the courses or subjects are graded on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 (generally). The highest grading is 1.0 and 5.0 is considered as a fail, where 4.0 would be a just pass. There are individual University regulations for re-appearing an exam for a course, which are readily available on the course, institute providing the course or University website. Also, the University generally provides the flexibility to change the registered subjects.

Image sources: Microsoft Office word Clip Art